6 best cities for finding love

Want to improve your chances this Valentine’s Day? Move

Americans may be getting lazy when it comes to finding love. Some 43% say they’d rather not date someone who lives more than 30 minutes away, according to a new survey of 1,000 single adults by Rent.com. Less than one-quarter say they’d date someone who lives more than an hour away. But rather than dine alone this Valentine’s Day, some experts suggest an alternative: Leave town. The nation’s lonely hearts have a significantly greater chance of meeting the man or woman of their dreams if they live in the right place, according to census data.

Here are cities with the highest male-female ratio, as well as cities with the most gay couples per capita.

— By Quentin Fottrell

Wiliston Amtrak station / Wikimedia Commons

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Williston, N.D.

Williston is at the heart of the North Dakota oil boom. And since the days of the Wild West and the Harvey Girls — those pioneering waitresses in the Harvey House chain of hotels and restaurants — many have capitalized on the lopsided male-female ratios of mining towns. It’s not so different in 2013. The ratio of men to women is most skewed in small oil and mining towns like Williston, N.D., where men living alone outnumber women living alone by more than two to one, according to U.S. Census data crunched by real-estate website Trulia. Why? This smaller metro area is at the center of one very male-dominated industry.

Jim Parkin / Shutterstock.com

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Gillette, Wyo.

This coal-mining town may not be as urbane as New York or exciting as Las Vegas, but it offers a better chance of turning one piece of dusty rock into a diamond. There are two men for every woman in Gillette and Rock Springs. Wyoming is also the least populous state in the country, with less than six people per square mile. Such rural living may not appeal to everyone. If you’re single, “don’t move into an area where nightlife is almost nonexistent,” advises Ummu Bradley Thomas, founder of the Freddie Bell Jones Modeling & Finishing School in Denton, Md.

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Las Vegas

Sin City attracts more than its fair share of single men. There are four men for every three women in Las Vegas, Trulia says. That may not sound like a lot, but a single woman on Valentine’s Day will probably stand out at a crowded roulette table. And in such a scenario, some experts theorize, men will be more gentlemanly and better behaved than the cast of characters in the bachelor party movie “The Hangover.” When men have to compete for women, “they’re more likely to follow a more traditional script,” says Jeffrey A. Hall, assistant professor of communication at the University of Kansas.

Shutterstock.com

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New York City

In New York, the tables are turned. In fact, Manhattan’s Upper East Side has a 2-to-1 ratio of young single women to men, according to analysis of census data by the New York City Economic Development Corp. “Billy Joel was on to something when he sang of uptown girls and downtown men,” says Jed Kolko, chief economist at Trulia. Although New York’s boroughs are 53% women and 47% men, this analysis found that almost every neighborhood in Manhattan has more women than men (with the Lower East Side being among the handful of exceptions).

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Washington, D.C.

The majority of both houses of Congress may be men, but the rest of D. C.? Not so much. In Washington, there are almost four women for every three men, according to Trulia’s analysis. Presumably, that means male politicos can be choosy. “Washington, D.C., is the worst place for single women to find a date,” says Vicky Oliver, author of “The Millionaire’s Handbook: How to Look and Act Like a Millionaire, Even If You’re Not.” In fact, women outnumber men in the big three power centers of the Northeast: Washington, Boston and New York.

ShutterstockSan Francisco Ca, Golden Gate Bridge

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San Francisco

The U.S. Census does not ask people about their sexual orientation, but it does log same-sex couples, which gives an indication for singletons, says Gary Gates, a demographer and distinguished scholar at the Williams Institute, a research center that studies sexual identity law and policy. Among cities with a population of over 250,000, San Francisco has the highest number of same-sex couples per capita (30 per 1,000 households), followed by Seattle (23), Oakland, Minneapolis (22) and Atlanta (20). But smaller cities and towns have an even greater concentration: There are 164 same-sex couples in Provincetown, Mass., for every 1,000 households, 140 in Wilton Manors, Fla., and 115 in Palm Springs, Calif.

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